Whistleblowing for public good

Shelley Walia

It took Edward Snowden years to realise the difference between working for the government and working for the public good. Choosing the latter option has meant exile for telling the world the truth about the structures of technological dominance, military violence and ideological legitimation. His “crime” is the revelation of classified document but only those that do not pertain to the identity of undercover agents or expose any defence secrets. 

George Orwell’s Big Brother has tangibly become a reality; every private act is observed by the omnipresent state machinery. Snowden made a bold and life-changing decision to grab the bull by its intrusive horns and blowing the lid off the unwarranted machinations of state run surveillance of world citizenry. It came as a shock when he cut loose from the establishment, revealing the programme of the state to “collect every single phone call, text message, and email” through spin-doctoring, image management and media manipulation. Snowden became the “Internet's conscience”, a whistleblower and a spy to whom human freedom mattered more than his own material survival.

Video surveillance, public records, interception of electronically transmitted information, cellphone tracking are endemic techniques used to insidiously disregard the right to privacy. Identifying and tracking of dissidents and protesters has provoked worldwide internet activism, an impetus to the rising international social movements. Paradoxically, as the means of communication get facilitated, its “emancipating virtues” are constantly curtailed on the pretext of the security of the state. 

Glued to the screen from childhood, Snowden had dreams of transforming into a legendary hero who would one day slay the tyrannical forces that subdue humanity into obeisance. The CIA and NASA become the villains for a public icon destined to redeem a world from the ruthless clutches of state surveillance.

Playing video games on Nintendo led to his introduction to the Legend of Zeldain and his acceptance of the idea of human mortality. He soon outgrew his love of video games and moved on to the Compaq Presario 425 which became both his teacher and his passion: “No teacher had ever been so patient, yet so responsive,” he writes. “Nowhere else-certainly not at school, and not even at home-had I ever felt so in control.” It was the ultimate love for the online world: “The Internet was my sanctuary; the Web became my jungle gym, my treehouse, my fortress, my classroom without walls.” Visits to gaming sites had tempted him to play the “god-mode” and attain the virtual invincibility and the status of the all-knowing omnipresent. 

On Ultima Online, he “could toggle between these alts with a freedom that was unavailable to me in off-line life, whose institutions tend to regard all mutability as suspicious.” 

Here he could go beyond the suffocating world of rules and regulations and be his own master. Public good and freedom became his obsessions and whistleblowing the only choice for corrective action crucially important to thwart the institutions that abrogate democratic principles, and reverse the failure of internal mechanisms of ethics and regulations. Instead of the normal practice of reporting to a senior authority, Snowden took a radical approach of siphoning off classified documents during his posting at the NSA’s Pacific Technical Center, at Yokota Air Base. His assignment here was to connect the systems architecture of the NSA and the CIA.

The clue for this discovery came not only from movies like Enemy of the State or the video game Perfect Dark but from his assignment of hacking into surveillance capabilities of China. When he did finally discover a classified document which indicated the government’s approval of carrying out mass surveillance, he brought it to the notice of some NSA officials but no action was taken. 

No other option remained but to release the information to the Guardian and the Washington Post. Already disgusted with the offline world of harsh discipline, the online world, too, stood corrupted by the state machinery. “Parental supervision” through surveillance appalled him. The last thing the public would want is to be treated like children. 

Interestingly, the internet of the past kept you anonymous, but the present internet has been reduced to a clandestine tool in the hands of not just Google or Facebook, but the government that has made it impossible to live ungoverned in a state of anonymity. He writes, “I was resolved to bring to light a single, all-encompassing fact: that my government had developed and deployed a global system of mass surveillance without the knowledge or consent of its citizenry.” 

Certainly, Snowden has his share of fierce critics who deem him a traitor. However, millions around the world take him as a hero especially for his underscoring the globalising dynamics of such ubiquitous shadowing of our every move resulting in “escalating military and police repression”. The advent of a new kind of terror of surveillance reaches a draconian viciousness with the increase in the power of the state. 

Snowden clearly has put out into the public domain classified documents the revelation of which has brought enormous praise for an act that is singular in present times. And it has huge implication for the transparency of systems with the aim of curtailing the malaise of the modern state emerging from the culture of secrecy observed in political affairs. There would probably be a world of conceivable peace and openness if the state came to grips with the necessity of human freedom and the right to privacy. 

Snowden has paid a huge price for his decision to lay bare the state’s espionage that ensnares the private individual. The jury is still out whether he’s an international messiah of individual freedom or a public employee who betrayed the trust reposed in him. However, it’s far more significant to interrogate and question the legitimacy of the all encompassing game the modern state is playing with the civil rights of its population.